Milestones, Awards and the Atlas Game

by James on June 22, 2012

Lamma Island, Hong Kong

This month marks a season of celebration. Just recently Plus Ultra passed the 1,000 mark for followers, and now the blog is just shy of its 100th post! As much as I would like to throw a party in the blogosphere, there are a couple of practical issues to deal with (timezones, for instance!) so I am writing this post instead.

I’d like to say a very big thank you to everyone for your comments, likes and enduring support over the past two years. I realise I haven’t been very active in keeping up-to-date since coming back from my most recent trip, as these past few weeks have been a fast-moving time of transition.

After several months spent drifting in the sea of unemployment, I have just been hired at a publishing firm, where I am joining the editorial team of an adventure travel magazine called Action Asia. I never thought it would be possible to do what I love and get paid to write, but this is what travel blogging can do for you!

Lately I’ve also received a handful of blogging awards, so I figured it was high time to pass them on and pay tribute to those who came before.

First of all I’d like to thank Terri from Time To Be Inspired for handing me The Versatile Blogger Award. She runs a fascinating website with a big emphasis on creativity, where she shares her recipes, a passion for handicrafts and her photos from the occasional trip.

I also want to thank Ritu of Color Odyssey, Nicole of thirdeyemom and Rachel of Lost on Planet China for a triple nomination for the One Lovely Blog Award. Ritu is a textile designer, photographer and artist based out of Singapore whose pictures will take your breath away. Nicole seems to have been just about everywhere! She writes detailed travelogues, has a penchant for serious hiking and volunteers for a good number of worthy causes. Rachel documents her remarkable and often hilarious experiences of living in China, and she’s not afraid to tell us all the ups and downs of a country so different from her own.

Finally, the Illuminating Blogger Award was passed on to me by The Wanderlust Gene, whose thought-provoking and evocative entries are such a joy to read. I deeply admire her work so this nomination in particular means a lot to me.

Each blogging award comes with its own rules and often a set number of nominations, but I’ve decided to break them all. Instead of sharing seven random things about myself (which could potentially send you all to sleep), I am taking my cues from The Wanderlust Gene in favour of something far more interesting – an Atlas Game of travel memories. The rules are simple: for every letter of the alphabet, name the first place that comes into your head, and your first recollection of that place!

James’ Atlas Game – a collection of memories

A

Auckland, New Zealand

Sailboats in the harbour, an old volcanic field and the sweeping silhouette of Rangitoto Island.

B

Beijing, China

Being given a traditional Chinese abacus; circling the Temple of Heaven and the first of several visits to the Great Wall.

C

Córdoba, Spain

Wandering the candy cane arches inside the mystical, Moorish Great Mosque. Whitewashed courtyards overflowing with the flowers of May.

A ferry ride to the island of Gulangyu, stacked with crumbling colonial houses.

Y

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The distinctive, pungent smell of cloves and tobacco; ascending the steps at monumental Borobudur and the sight of Merapi, my first volcano.

Z

Zug, Switzerland

Meeting some very dear friends of my father. An introduction to insalata caprese and the game of Ligretto.

For this round of nominations I am turning the focus mainly on blogs that I’ve only just begun to follow, ranging from Julie’s multilingual globetrotting (I don’t know of any other travel blogger who writes in three languages!) to Erica’s eye-opening record of her adventures across Japan, and the witty, impeccable humour of Sally, the “Unbrave Girl” who has been courageously living (and laughing) in a Chinese city whose name means “No Tin”.

If you’ve been nominated please don’t feel obliged to pass on these awards. This is just a way of highlighting some of the blogs I enjoy reading out there that deserve to be noticed and recognised. In the meantime, here’s to another fantastic year of blogging!

Congrats for the job, for the awards and the new game! I’ll give a thought to 26 places I’ve been and might write my own post about it! that’s an idea to follow!
Thanks again for talking about me, although I’m not sure I deserve such a praise… I’m new, a baby-blogger and have so much to learn, besides wording and writing! ah! but that gives me wings to go on!

Looking forward to reading you,
Happy trails and posts to you and professional articles!
J.

I like good news stories – and the news you’ve got yourself a travel-ralated job that’s in some part thanks to your blog is a tremendously good news story! Congratulations, and best wishes for great success in your new career, James. Congratulations too, on 1,000 (hear that folks, one thousand!) followers. That’s a testament to the consistent quality of your posts.

Congratulations too, on playing a very deft hand of The Atlas Game – I can see it just might take off – wouldn’t that be grand? I’ve just come back from exploring the blogs of your nominees, and other proposers – some terrific work: thank you. And thank you too, for your kind and very supportive words about my blog, I really appreciate that.

1- Congrats on reaching awesome blogging milestones!!!
2- yay job! and one that has to do with travel!!! it sounds absolutely amazing. 🙂
3- I would like to point out that there is at least one food item description in each of your locations in the atlas game- this is why we are blog friends.
4- Thanks for the shout-out and award nomination!!
5- that was a lot of !!s, but this was a very exciting post.

Thanks Erica! You were so right about the food descriptions… it is such an indispensable part of travelling though! I need to go back to Sapporo for some more winter ramen. How long do you think you’ll be staying in Japan?

I still haven’t officially announced it yet, but I will be sailing around the world from end of Aug until mid-Nov-ish. Flight back to Seattle mid-Dec. So you have roughly 3 mo to find yourself in Japan! 🙂

CONGRATS! To your new job, your 1000th follower, and all your awards! Are you superman? 😉 I especially enjoyed the Atlas Game -interestingly we share the same memories for Montreal & Sapporo! Please tell me you went snowboarding/skiing here!

Thank you! I wish I was, wouldn’t need to pay for any air fares if that was the case. 😛 Actually Sapporo (or just outside of it) was where I learned to ski – haven’t done Mt. Tremblant though, next time I’ll have to try snowboarding!